Ars takes a look at some of the best forum comments about Diablo III.

Earlier this week, our own Gaming Editor Kyle Orland reported on Diablo III’s recent problems with servers, programming, and notably, post-launch fixes to the game’s character skill building. Keeping all technical problems in mind, how good is the Diablo III experience?

Over at the Ars OpenForum's “Perpetual Diablo 3 Thread! GAME IS LIVE!”, readers have been discussing the title since early May, just before the game launched, and have evaluated the game from all sorts of angles in more than 3,900 posts.

The thread begins with a useful set of Diablo III resources that Jebus H Cripes posted for all players, which includes the Ars battle tag list, server status page, known issues list and more. But if you still haven’t decided if you want to invest in the game, the discussions inside the forum add some insight in addition to our review of the game, including updated thoughts on how the game has evolved since that review first ran.

Aside from purely gameplay-related discussions many users seem to be making a sticking point of the game's requirement for a persistent Internet connection. Xoa notes in the comments of the review that “Honestly, I was really, really unimpressed, and I'm so happy I didn't buy it. The always-on DRM, by itself, would be all the reason necessary to avoid the entire thing no matter what, but rather then that being a tough decision I don't feel like I'm missing anything at all. I don't find the engine vaguely impressive on any level, the writing, characters, and general feel of it was a huge let down, etc.”

Benhameen does think that the game provides a deep level of satisfaction. “Do you enjoy the "completionist" part of games? Some people love it—finding/earning all the things necessary to level up. If that's exciting to you then have fun. “

Part of this satisfaction, is also tied to the game’s auction house. hambone notes “So I'm coming from the gaming camp that more or less dismissed D3 as derivative and uninteresting. Paid it no heed all through its development. Assumed most of the people in this thread were fanboys and sheeps. And now here I am of course, having bought D3 two nights ago on pure impulse out of some combination of 10 years worth of nostalgia and latent addiction…I gotta say that—by far—the killer feature of D3 is the auction house. It's more addictive to play the market and buy cheap yellows than to play the game…However, I must give two enthusiastic and controller-friendly thumbs-up to the new skill system. It is flexible, the unlockable progression is its own reward, and sub-dividing the skills into four major categories (for the Barb at least) creates a sort of 'mix and match your superhero' vibe to the game, which I like.”

GirgleMirt’ doesn’t think the auction house works all that well: “Just a few thoughts on the game. So far, I think the auction house is a good idea in theory, but in practice, it doesn't work. Say you're level 6, you'll have some magical items, couple thousand golds. Let's say you find a random magical item. If you sell it to in game merchants, you'll get say 25 gold. This same item, if bought from the merchants, will cost you something like 2000 gold. You can buy a better item in the auction house for 100 gold, and you can most probably sell it for 100, which is 4x as much as you'd get in game...So anyway, AH = breaks the game. Not to mention that crafting gems cost a fortune vs. just buying them in the AH... And you find so much damn gold, very strong items cost peanuts on the AH, if you use the AH, it just ruins the game because you don't even have to hunt for items. It ruins almost everything. Ruins the challenge, ruins the thrill of finding items (you can just buy them for peanuts...), it ruins crafting, it ruins jewel crafting, it ruins buying/selling items in game, it just ruins the game!! (and no I'm not going to use it anymore )”

Anvilfang, just like many other readers in the OpenForum, notes that Diablo III’s customization is a winning feature. “The customization is surprisingly deep with this game. At first I wasn't at all interested in this game because of my perceived lack of character progression, but I was quite wrong. The runes for individual attacks, the passives, and the mantras all make very significant changes for your play style depending on what you choose.”

The story’s narrative worked for VirtualWolf: “Woot, finished the game on Normal. \o/ I really enjoyed the story, but Diablo himself didn't put up much of a fight! Though given I was at around 725dps in the final fight and mostly spammed Rapid Fire...”

Raptor’s Broomstick, who also commented on the Ars Diablo III review, said, “This review makes me feel a lot better... I've still got a backlog of other games, but I was thinking of bumping this to the top of the list. Now I think I'll wait, let them work out the bugs, and let the whole online mess (and potentially market) settle down.”

Of course, if you have already set out to plunge into the depths of demon-blasting action in the game, you can also find other Ars readers to play with, like marshman did: “Long time lurker, delurking. Looking for some cool folks to play with so I added my name to the list. It's too bad you can't seem to add friends outside of the game.”

What about you? What are your thoughts on the gameplay of Diablo III? Now that it’s been out for a few weeks, has your enjoyment of it changed in any way? Share your thoughts with us via the comments, or advance your gameplay by joining up with other gamers in the thread. If you’re new to the OpenForum, register for an account and join in the discussion.

Promoted Comments

Old gamer here who has played D1 and D2 extensively. I have finished D3 on the normal level and enjoyed it.While the story is a bit meh and short I found the gameplay balanced and worth every buck I spent.I also had some login / logoff issues which first made me angry but then I recalled my past experience and decided that it's not worth to freak out because of some glitches.

I was at an exhibition with a friend at the times when Atari gaming was huge. He spoke with some guys who have developed a very popular title.He said "I have bought it and I love it!". The answer was "well, that was you! Thanks a lot." It turned out that they only sold a couple of copies.It was for sure not the sole problem the platform, but at least for some devs piracy killed it.

The times PC gaming got strong we organized LAN parties with barbecue and music - the biggest fun ever.Not sure if it was simply because I got older, but I remember that I was increasingly annoyed by this cheating, modding and cracking madness that began to rule the leader boards and multi player fights at the time the internet got affordable.Although I like stunning graphics new titles often had such extensive system requirements that I got fed up with upgrading every year.I ditched PC gaming, switched to board games like Settlers of Catan and didn't look back for many years.

Two years ago I bought the first iPad and encouraged by my children I began to play electronic games again. After some time I first bought some games I played together with my children and finally returned to buy and play games for me again (now on a Mac).

If the current online DRM mode would mark the end of the piracy/cheating death spiral some users suffered in the past I'm fine even with occasional hiccups.What I don't like is that there's no dedicated LAN modus for playing with my friends and my children, while I know the reasons it's not implemented.

Back to the Game. It's an evolution and beside some necessary fixes I feel that there's something left out.I read that D3 is the fastest selling PC game ever. That's a huge credit of trust from gamers.So Blizzard please don't stop here and delight us with some additional content, features and story lines beyond the obvious in a future expansion set.Overall my return to the Diablo universe is fun and a challenge - that's what gaming is about.

Cesar Torres
Cesar is the Social Editor at Ars Technica. His areas of expertise are in online communities, human-computer interaction, usability, and e-reader technology. Cesar lives in New York City. Emailcesar.torres@arstechnica.com//Twitter@Urraca

123 Reader Comments

I bought Skyrim late (could not wait for price drop it seems).. still working on it. I pre-ordered D3.. but not early enough to get a significant price break. Basically, I got it backwards. I should have bought Skyrim out of the gate and waited on D3 until the price dropped.

I am back in Skyrim now and see no compelling reason to pull me into Diablo land anytime soon.

Ars' original review and this follows up reminds me of the reviewers you see on RottenTomatoes who post just to get hits and to be contrairy. I don't buy the whole "oh if they don't point out the negative, no one will!" point of view, the glossing over of positive points and cherry picking from the proportionately few negative reviews in the OpenForum thread just stinks of a reviewer who's trying too hard to stand out from the crowd of folks who think positively of the game.

My experience so far has been 99% awesome, the only thing I'm hesitant over is how much long-term legs this game has regarding hammering out gear and drops coupled with the RMAH later on. I'm not there yet, but until I see some crazy-unique stuff showing up for endgame I'm not sure how far I'll push myself to get too much with a single character; taking alts through the game is quite enjoyable since each class plays so differently.

It's not that the game is without faults, the need for logging in, lag from a server for a seemingly single-player experience isn't optimal, and some would object to always-on DRM; I've never had a problem since my play time is atypical and tends to be after fixes and restarts are going on and I don't have a laptop that I'd play this on anyways so a majority of my D3 gaming has actually been at my home gaming rig. The game is also incredibly short although the semi-random generation of areas helps buffer some of that with replayability. But for all of these faults, most of which don't seem to affect me much outside of my regular play regimen, it does seem that Ars just posted up a stinker of a review (and follow up) simply to get hits and pageviews, citing virtually none of the strengths and focusing almost purely on the faults.

What's it like? IT SUCKS!!!! I hate the fact that I paid for this shit game. I wish I could gift it to some noob. And yes, I did buy this piece of shit. So fuck off Blizzard fanboys! This game is a steaming pile.

Gameplay: Why do I wish I was playing Torchlight? Why does a sorry $20.00 game feel better than a so called blockbuster?

DRM: Why am I a criminal? The RMAH may never see the light of day - you can all go home now!!! Blizzard have sold out - HARD!!! I hate myself for buying this tripe - I'll never play it more than the 15 minutes I already have. Fuck you Blizzard/Activision - you got my money now - you'll get no more!

I am really disappointed in this game. From the always on connection to the RMAH. I beat normal with my monk, Diablo was a joke I think I had to use maybe 2 potions and my heal spell a couple of times. A complete let down.

I really don't have any desire to go through nightmare. It could of been different instead of just starting over.

I am really disappointed in this game. From the always on connection to the RMAH. I beat normal with my monk, Diablo was a joke I think I had to use maybe 2 potions and my heal spell a couple of times. A complete let down.

I really don't have any desire to go through nightmare. It could of been different instead of just starting over.

Blizzard I am disappoint.

At least for difficulty, nightmare is definitely bit more interesting than normal.

My wife and I have been playing through on co-op. I have to admit i was skeptical about shelling $120 for us to play a game, but we've been having fun.

Our Setup:I'm playing on a Win7 desktop, she's playing on a 2008 imac. We bumped her resolution down a bit to bring the fps up, but other than that its been fine. Playing on battle.net across platforms is seamless. As far as issues with lag, it depends on the day, but its always been playable. We've had no issues with dropped connections.

Gameplay:I think we are about 18-20 hours in and part of the way into Act 3. Our style is to clear the maps and all of the dungeons, so I would say our play time is on the slow side, probably on the slowest side. The difficulty is definitely set for casual players. We aren't having any issues progressing and dying is a rarity. As other's have mentioned, the story is OK, definitely nothing special or compelling. The leveling system is definitely a change, but we are both enjoying it. Being able to try out new runes and new passives and then going back to our favorites makes it fun. The no penalty for experimentation makes it another good game for casual players.

Verdict:We bought it and play it for what it is: Diablo. I define Diablo as classic hack n' slash and loot whoring. It does this very well. Is it the best game ever? No and I wasn't expecting it to be. I think we are getting our moneys worth out of it since we will easily put 40+ in on the first play through. I am guessing we will play through on nightmare as well, so that will probably double that.

edit: I forgot to mention my one major complaint, and its only related to co-op afaik. I don't like that you can't utilize the companions (or whatever they are called). I'm definitely picking up loot specific to them and I would enjoy leveling those characters as I play through also. I don't know how much that would change or improve the overall experience, but I would still like the option to have them in the game playing in co-op.

You know, it's odd. Anecdotally, almost everyone I know who has actually played the game has enjoyed the hell out of it. Only a handful have found it less than compelling. By and large, the most numerous critics of the game seem to be either people who haven't played it (unable/unwilling due to the online qualifier; don't like dungeon-clickers; et cetera) or professional reviewers who seem to be scrambling to be the first to post a negative review of the current best-selling PC game.

It's hard to argue with someone who has a preconception (this swings both ways - I readily admit to giving Blizzard games leeway on release that I wouldn't give other game companies simply due to their track record over the last fifteen years), and it seems like there are a lot of preconceptions when it comes to Diablo 3.

I get that Cesar is trying to play the board and show both sides of the debate. And that's fair. I guess. It also brings in the page clicks. But it does, perhaps inadvertantly, give the impression that outside of game forums, there's any debate as to the game's quality.

I have to agree with you that by and large, the game is an overwhelming success. Everywhere I go (including work) people are raving about it. Fans of the series and people new to the series. Friends, and even family. Even walking through the grocery store today I overheard people talking about it in a very positive light.

Non-Trolls seem to overwhelmingly love the game. And by Non-Trolls, I mean people who haven't been spending the last year and a half trashing the game for Always Online and RMAH. We get it. Even if the game had a spectacular plot and was incredibly good, you'd still be here trashing it. Your opinion has no bearing on the game itself, it's all preconceived. We shouldn't give these people the time of day let alone kick off the article with one.

I'm convinced that a vast majority of these people are just ticked they couldn't get it on pirate bay. I know there are legit concerns and people who don't always have a persistent connection, but those people usually say their peace, and rightfully so and leave it at that- not rage war across the entire internet.

It has gotten out of hand. Ignore them. Give it time. They'll find another game to loathe, then the truth will come out from those who actually played the game.

I can't believe people are saying "What happened to the great story from Diablo 2". Did anyone even pay attention in Diablo 2? The story was hundreds of times worse...at least Diablo 3 has continuity and flow. D2 was basically "Bad shit is happening here, go fix it. More bad shit happening, go deal with that. Random bitch is at the bottom of a tower, kill her".

And then somewhere interspersed with the completely unconnected quests was some crap about a hobo named Marius screwing up a lot.

Yeah, sure, some of the one-liners are lame. But let's not forget the great gems like "Fear my army of the dead!" and "You're too late!". Such high quality there.

Honestly...this is just like Generation 1 Transformers fans whining about camp and cheesiness. I swear, no one actually watches/reads the stuff they keep fanboying over, they just want to be part of the cool crowd...

There is a serious shallowness to the item system by having it pure random for everything. So much fun having a legendary drop and finding out its full of junk stats making it completely worthless.

On top of that is the problem with the ah and the fact items don't drop out of circulation except possibly endgame items that don't get replaced. Only a matter of time until the ah is full of "perfect" items going for barely more than vendor prices.

I know always-on is a deal breaker for some people, but lets not pretend like it doesn't have any benefits at all.

It doesn't have any benefits. Why? Because those aren't benefits of being forced to be online.

If you unplugged your network connection, you wouldn't be able to play with your friends. But if forced online wasn't available, then you could at least play by yourself.

There was no technological limitation preventing Blizzard from allowing the game to continue to run single-player in non-online conditions. They could still have all of those features you talked about and provide LAN play or just off-line single-player for those who are playing in off-line conditions.

You're conflating two things: better online support and forced-online play. You don't need the latter to have the former.

the MINUTE they announced the AH, online would be a requirement. not sure how old you are (if you ever played d1/2) but there was RAMPANT item cloning and cheating... we will not see the D3 equivalent of http://www.d2sector.net/

while players might not "see" any benefit to the online requirement, i think it makes for a better experience for everyone.

I can't believe people are saying "What happened to the great story from Diablo 2". Did anyone even pay attention in Diablo 2? The story was hundreds of times worse...at least Diablo 3 has continuity and flow. D2 was basically "Bad shit is happening here, go fix it. More bad shit happening, go deal with that. Random bitch is at the bottom of a tower, kill her".

And then somewhere interspersed with the completely unconnected quests was some crap about a hobo named Marius screwing up a lot.

Yeah, sure, some of the one-liners are lame. But let's not forget the great gems like "Fear my army of the dead!" and "You're too late!". Such high quality there.

Honestly...this is just like Generation 1 Transformers fans whining about camp and cheesiness. I swear, no one actually watches/reads the stuff they keep fanboying over, they just want to be part of the cool crowd...

I'd rather have quick, understated and bad than long-winded, ham-fisted and bad.

The other games' stories didn't get in the way. You could ignore it and get to the business of killing monsters. Diablo3's story, with its constant cut scenes and NPC chatter, is so bad it detracts from the experience.

I know always-on is a deal breaker for some people, but lets not pretend like it doesn't have any benefits at all.

It doesn't have any benefits. Why? Because those aren't benefits of being forced to be online.

If you unplugged your network connection, you wouldn't be able to play with your friends. But if forced online wasn't available, then you could at least play by yourself.

There was no technological limitation preventing Blizzard from allowing the game to continue to run single-player in non-online conditions. They could still have all of those features you talked about and provide LAN play or just off-line single-player for those who are playing in off-line conditions.

You're conflating two things: better online support and forced-online play. You don't need the latter to have the former.

the MINUTE they announced the AH, online would be a requirement. not sure how old you are (if you ever played d1/2) but there was RAMPANT item cloning and cheating... we will not see the D3 equivalent of http://www.d2sector.net/

while players might not "see" any benefit to the online requirement, i think it makes for a better experience for everyone.

I don't think there's any question that the Auction House would be largely detrimental to the long-term viability/difficulty of the game. As it is, Gems are insanely cheap. And a level 15 who gets a stick with a socket in it can afford a near top-tier gem which adds an insane amount of stats with NO level requirement. And it will only get worse since gems never disappear.

That said, the AH is an optional piece of the game just as trading in D2. It won't be long before the only path with the slightest bit of difficulty yet again is Untwinked Hardcore Ladder. Still, at the moment D3 is much further from that point than D2 ever was.

If you avoid the Auction House (and using your other characters' gems), the game is quite challenging in late-Nightmare and Hell. Maybe in Inferno use of the AH and whatnot is necessary in order to progress- but before then it should be avoided like the plague. It WILL ruin the game if you go overboard. (Unless you like cleaving through enemies mindlessly like a seemingly endless Dynasty Warriors set to Easy Mode.)

I'm using such house rules INCLUDING absolutely =NO= Farming, and it's fantastically difficult. D2 players should be used to house rules, though.

Edit:That said, there's nothing wrong or broken about needing house rules. The game is as easy or as difficult as you want it to be. You pick your rules and play by them. It's like a modular difficulty slider.

You know, it's odd. Anecdotally, almost everyone I know who has actually played the game has enjoyed the hell out of it. Only a handful have found it less than compelling. By and large, the most numerous critics of the game seem to be either people who haven't played it (unable/unwilling due to the online qualifier; don't like dungeon-clickers; et cetera) or professional reviewers who seem to be scrambling to be the first to post a negative review of the current best-selling PC game.

It's hard to argue with someone who has a preconception (this swings both ways - I readily admit to giving Blizzard games leeway on release that I wouldn't give other game companies simply due to their track record over the last fifteen years), and it seems like there are a lot of preconceptions when it comes to Diablo 3.

I've completed the game. As a single player action rpg, it's alright. High production value, polished, smooth, enjoyable.

Saying that, while some ppl may tend to overlook the always online requirement, for some others, it is more than ideological grounds we argue on. This has created practical play problems, not to mention i cant just go to the cafe, hang around and play (no wifi & mobile hotspot ping is very bad for practical gaming).

Also, while i like the AH, I do find that it greatly devalues replayability and the hook of playing to gear yourself up is overshadowed by the ease & cheap cost of exceptional items you can get from the ah.

Also, for the upcoming real money AH, I can't see any sane person using it although i had seriously intended to at first. The current level of unreliability of the system where items dissappear into the aether and gold dissappearing makes a very bad impression. It's not something you should put real money through even if they get it together.

Story-wise, it's very basic. It's "good enough" but it's also very umambitious and lacks the epic quality that Blizzard is capable of (see WC3 story and even D2). It's comparable to Star Wars the Old Republic MMORPG story-line, except that SWTOR story is quite a bit more extensive. But the general level of writing and ambition is pretty low.

I lament the destruction of Tyrael who in D2 was ominus, foreboding and distant even if he identified with humanity's plight. To me, Tyrael was remarkably out of character, at leats in respect to his character in D2.

Also, and this is a nitpick, no paladin class in a demon infested game = huge oversight. The monk isn't really a proper replacement as he isn't written at all to be a holy avenger of the god(s). Our templar companion had more righteous wrath, fire and zeal; which is a shame.

Is it enjoyable? Yes. Is there a ton of replayability? Not for me. In the franchise, D2 is a better game by far; it was also more ambitious in terms of writing. I completed D1 again not long ago and that too, felt like a much better game, although the graphics are horrid to my eyes now!

It seems that blizzard story-telling seems to have peaked at Warcraft 3. It was grand, ambitious, had many, many layers and many factions with many memorable characters, moments, locations and enemies that weren't pushovers. Even with many heroes fighting, the enemy very nearly won. Ace writing. It was epic.

The narrative of the this game was an insult to game-writing. It was targeted at the generation that grew up with "Justin Bieber" and "Yu-Gi-Oh" Saturday-morning cartoons. There was no plot twist, no carefully revealed villain. Everything was oozing with cheese and middle-schooler story telling. I can't BELIEVE Chris Metzen was in charge of this game's narrative. How could he put his name on this abomination?! Sadly I can't believe that I'm the only one bitching about the story. I guess no body makes games for people like me anymore.

Ever play the first game? The levels, the soundtrack, the art, it was truly terrifying. It didn't look like bloom effected over-pretty, cartoon-land like this game.

Blizzard, this was the last game I bought with your name on it. I have a feeling your Activision overlords had a lot to do with the cash generating behemoth that Diablo 3 has become.

Oh fucking please. Blizzard has never been a bastion of great storytelling. I still have no idea how they got people to believe that they wrote great stories. I mean, was the rampaging stupidity of the WC3 plotline supposed to actually mean something? SC1 didn't exactly have great writing either. And yet, people remember these games as though they're the Shakespeare of videogame writing.

Diablo 3 is par for the course as far as Blizzard writing goes.

WC3 shakespear of game writing? Not by a long shot, but it was epic nonetheless, if for no other reason than for the sheer ability to weave that much story into a single game.

I've play most RPG's and MMORPG's since MUD days and there's very few games that have that level of ambition (and mostly achieves it) in the story. At the top of my head, there isn't yet a game that quite reaches up to WC3 level of storytelling in the gaming world while still offering compelling gameplay. There are some I consider to be better written but those tend to be less epic in scale (Max Payne). The story telling in WC3 is very good, so were the characters, so were the settings and the world, so were the events, so were the locations, so were the rivalries etc etc.

Is it shakespear? No, it's not even Tolkien level but it's still much better than what is typically done for rpg's. They told a good story with WC3 even if the writing wasn't fantastic.

The always-online is annoying (especially since my laptop could probably give me a couple of hours of single-player at least...sigh) but it's not a dealbreaker for me. If you've got a decent Internet connection at home, I don't see why the DRM has to be a sticking point.

Well, think about it. If the publishers decide the game is end-of-life in, say, December 2013; and you decide to reinstall and relive the game (which, if we're honest, a lot of players do), you're shit out of luck. No DRM servers = no game.

See, this is where I get somewhat aggravated. If I bought this game, then it has a limited shelf life - not limited by the media, but by the "protection" designed and baked into it. Yet someone who didn't pay - for instance, obtained from a torrent source - won't be limited by this at all. They'll also get to play when the internet line goes down. That's the problem with all this DRM crap. It doesn't stop non-paying gamers from getting the game at all: we know this and it's plain to see. It just creates a false sense of security for the publisher, and a f*** you for customers who do try to be legit.

It seems like that's what it has to be, for 99% of RPGs. It's got to be the most cliche story ever, and then some, and plot twists must be visible from miles away.

I want to make a good RPG. I will, one day.

I think you misunderstand me. I am not bothered that most fantasy adventure games run parallel to the themes of Tolkien, Robert Howard, et al. What bothers me about Diablo 3 is that the game relies too heavily on remixing the stories of the older two games, and does so badly. The plot twists are entirely predictable. Chris Metzen did an amazingly awesome job with Starcraft 2. I have no idea what happened with him over Diablo 3, because the story is almost bothersome accompanied with a very weak presentation.

But hey, if you can do better, I say more power to you! There has been too much "streamlining" in RPGs lately. Skyrim seems to be the only one (I've seen) that was streamlined well.

The game is a lag fest even on single player game. You can't seem to play a single player game anymore without being online. Blame it on the pirates for that. The last 3 so called single player games I've bought require that you be online to play. So far Diablo is the worse game with this. I died so many times because of the lag. But i spend 60 dollars for it, i made sure i got through and finished it. I already uninstalled it. No replay value at all but to play on some lame harder mode. And the online community seems to be a bunch of jerks.

Old gamer here who has played D1 and D2 extensively. I have finished D3 on the normal level and enjoyed it.While the story is a bit meh and short I found the gameplay balanced and worth every buck I spent.I also had some login / logoff issues which first made me angry but then I recalled my past experience and decided that it's not worth to freak out because of some glitches.

I was at an exhibition with a friend at the times when Atari gaming was huge. He spoke with some guys who have developed a very popular title.He said "I have bought it and I love it!". The answer was "well, that was you! Thanks a lot." It turned out that they only sold a couple of copies.It was for sure not the sole problem the platform, but at least for some devs piracy killed it.

The times PC gaming got strong we organized LAN parties with barbecue and music - the biggest fun ever.Not sure if it was simply because I got older, but I remember that I was increasingly annoyed by this cheating, modding and cracking madness that began to rule the leader boards and multi player fights at the time the internet got affordable.Although I like stunning graphics new titles often had such extensive system requirements that I got fed up with upgrading every year.I ditched PC gaming, switched to board games like Settlers of Catan and didn't look back for many years.

Two years ago I bought the first iPad and encouraged by my children I began to play electronic games again. After some time I first bought some games I played together with my children and finally returned to buy and play games for me again (now on a Mac).

If the current online DRM mode would mark the end of the piracy/cheating death spiral some users suffered in the past I'm fine even with occasional hiccups.What I don't like is that there's no dedicated LAN modus for playing with my friends and my children, while I know the reasons it's not implemented.

Back to the Game. It's an evolution and beside some necessary fixes I feel that there's something left out.I read that D3 is the fastest selling PC game ever. That's a huge credit of trust from gamers.So Blizzard please don't stop here and delight us with some additional content, features and story lines beyond the obvious in a future expansion set.Overall my return to the Diablo universe is fun and a challenge - that's what gaming is about.

As a hardcore melee player in nightmare I reject the claims about customized builds. Sure you can pick and choose a myriad of skills and runes, even ones you enjoy extremely but factor in a penalty then its quite evident most of them are artificial.

Maybe I'm delusional about how unique my barbarian build is, but I like to think I have found one that is "my own". I also feel it's only one of many that are viable, but this one works well for me on Hell at the moment.

It's:

- 1H + Shield- Primary: Bash with chance to stun Rune- Secondary: Rend with increased damage Rune- Skill 1: Leap with increased armor after landing Rune- Skill 2: Charge with decreased cooldown upon hitting an enemy Rune- Skill 3: Armor shout, with health boost and regeneration Rune- Skill 4: Forgot the name of this one too, but summon the three guardians. Although this skill is the least important.

It's low on damage, but with about 600 health regeneration / second I'm hard to kill. The charge rune is neat because if my charge hits 5 or more enemies, it has no cooldown. If the group is big enough, I can charge again right after the previous one has finished, and that several times. This does a lot of damage and it decimates any group of lesser mobs with ease.

I use Leap in several ways. It's nice to jump into a group of enemies with it, dealing a bit of damage to them. At the same time, the Rune triples my armor for a few seconds, giving me around 80% damage reduction, which is good when surrounded by mobs. It also works well to chase running enemies with. Also when fighting a boss, I also use it whenever it's available for the armor boost to tank the boss. And lastly, it's really good to get out of tight spots with, especially when dealing with elites that cast walls (hate those!).

Using Bash deals a decent amount of single-target damage, and the 35% chance to stun is really nice as it interrupts a lot of nasty things that monsters can do.

Rend allows me to fight a war of attrition. It doesn't do a huge amount of damage, but I can just cast it and run away. Usually I charge in, cast it, let it run its course and charge in again, etc. And as I run away, my health regeneration fixes the damage I sustained.

My build is definitely viable (made it to Hell with it after all) and from what I've seen fairly unique too. So I think that speaks for the versatility of Diablo 3's skill system. I'm sure that aside from my ultra-defensive build, you can also go for a more offensive one.

I was one of the few people that played the game here and there since release but wasn't really extremely into the game.

Over the holiday weekend I played and joined a friends game only to find out he had joined a public game. My account was hacked within hours (before I tried to play again). I was very much getting into the game and being hacked really set me in a bad mood. Prior, I had just found my first legendary and I had saved 250k gold.

Blizzard handles the hacked account thing pretty poor, they will revert you to a previous snapshot of your account and the best I can tell is that these are done daily. I didn't play once my account was hacked but those who have and take the roll back option also lose any progress with other characters. I didn't take the roll back option and instead I got better support through friends that play Diablo 3 than Blizzard was willing to offer. I got some lousy gear just to get me by while my friends pushed me from 37 to 50. During that process I accumulated another 400k gold.

The game is enjoyable and tough (as a witch doctor). The auction house is definitely a requirement for Hell or Inferno. But, Blizzard's support when a player is hacked or exploited with a possible server side glitch has to be the worst. Blizzard's support is usually pretty good as people are accustomed to from WoW. However they didn't build in the same level of GM control into Diablo as their bread and butter title.

You know, it's odd. Anecdotally, almost everyone I know who has actually played the game has enjoyed the hell out of it. Only a handful have found it less than compelling. By and large, the most numerous critics of the game seem to be either people who haven't played it (unable/unwilling due to the online qualifier; don't like dungeon-clickers; et cetera) or professional reviewers who seem to be scrambling to be the first to post a negative review of the current best-selling PC game.

It's hard to argue with someone who has a preconception (this swings both ways - I readily admit to giving Blizzard games leeway on release that I wouldn't give other game companies simply due to their track record over the last fifteen years), and it seems like there are a lot of preconceptions when it comes to Diablo 3.

Story-wise, it's very basic. It's "good enough" but it's also very umambitious and lacks the epic quality that Blizzard is capable of (see WC3 story and even D2).

I'll agree on WC3.

But WHAT epic quality plot in D2? Enough with the hand waving. Did everyone else play the same D2 that I spent about 2000+ hours on consistently playing over the past 11 years? Everything about D2's plot was worse than D3's regardless of how much people would like it to be otherwise.

Seriously. The writing was HORRIBLE! D3's isn't exactly the best, but nowhere near as bad as D2's. I don't think it's preconceptions, it's nostalgia playing with people's memories.

Maybe these people were 12 when D2 first came out and never noticed how terrible the plot is. Now that they're 23+ and have higher standards, D3 doesn't meet them. But over the years, the writing didn't get worse. Your standards got higher. There is no way D2's plot is better than D3's- because there hardly WAS a plot.

After a crap day of work and then some crises at home (2yo son's now in hospital, my wife staying with him, nothing too bad thankfully) I finally get home and think "well, I'll give D3 another shot tonight. Maybe it'll fire up my enthusiasm finally."

And then I see the eight hour server downtime due to patch 1.02 being applied.

On the same night WoW is down. In fact, the same times.

I know Blizzard is not staffed by morons, but to take 2/3 of their big games down on the same night seems... well... moronic. Surely they imagine there's a strong overlap in the markets (especially since they gave D3 for free to any WoW player who agreed to stay subscribed for a year) and players are going to say "WoW is down, guess I'll play D3 tonight!"

But no. Apparently WoW and D3 need to be down on the same night because... well, I can't imagine a reason there that isn't rooted in sheer stupidity.

I keep wanting to like D3, and the game seems like it could be good, but everything around the game is stopping me from enjoying it.

Screw it. I'm going to leave this game for a few more days before I attempt to enjoy it again. It's getting very close to my "uninstall this POS now!" limit. I need a few days to cool off before I come back to this with a positive attitude.

(edit)D2 had a plot?!? I played that game and never encountered such a thing. Seriously? People think that was a plot? The cutscenes were great, but...

I think the game is great overall. A few points to some stuff I saw in this thread.

-the story/writing. I thought it was fine and as good as you could have made it. Anyone who thinks Blizzard are masters of story telling is having fond memories of being younger and more easily surprised by obvious foreshadowing and not as experienced with cliches and normal tropes. What exactly did you people want from the story? There wasn't a lot going on in the first place and they had to write enough interchangeable bits to fit all the various characters. I think they did the best they could considering the source material. (and whoever said there were not plot twists barely paid attention because there were some, just obvious if you paid attention to foreshadow or realized the trope being done)

-controls. Yeah walk and attack are the same button. That is why you hold the shift button to make you stand still. It's easy once you know that.

-art. I love the hand drawn painting style. And zomg! there is more then three colors used. I think Act 3 looks fantastic.

-graphics. Blizzard isn't known for pushing the envelope here (other then prerendered cutscenes) but I was surprised at how much nuance the animations have. And as an aside to the guy who says you can't dodge stuff, yeah you can. Try moving your character around. It's actually fairly easy and accurate to dodge long range attacks

-shortness. I don't get it. It takes about 20 to 30 hours to run a character through Normal (if you don't have gems for power leveling - and yes Blizzard said that was a design choice). That is short these days? Apparently all the six to eight hour single player games disappeared this past month

-sound. There is some cheesy VO for sure, I amuse myself by talking like Decard Cain and saying Diablo. But overall it's pretty good. The music and sound effects are great

-difficulty. Normal is easy. Stupid easy. But don't call the overall game easy until you've gotten into the upper difficulties. By Inferno it is practically unfair

-online only. Doesn't bother me because I don't have some weird ideological obsession over something so trivial

-the AH. Fun for some, not for others. It's your choice if you want to buy and/or sell things. Don't complain about it making things to easy if you're using it. I've barely touched it, there is more then enough decent loot that is dropped until you want to start maxing all your equip (and then you're just being lazy)

-items. I agree there is a bit of an issue here. Blizzard needs to rework some numbers to make the yellows and orange a bit better as well as include more interesting attributes

-customization. The game is so customizable it's insane. Being able to change colors of gear was a brilliant addition. Being able to change skills when you want opens up a whole new way to play where you can strategize and tinker. It is A LOT of fun to figure out how different combos of spells and runes (and gear) work together. The number of options is staggering. Granted the number of "viable" choices shrink by the time you get to Inferno, but Blizzard says they want to work on that to have many "viable" options

A lot of the hate seems to come from people who are still early in the game, unfamiliar with the style of game (or the controls), ideological reasons, unrealistic expectations, or simply hate change

As an aside, I believe Blizzard would allow single player in a patch if they ever did decide to shut down their servers, but that would probably be ten to fifteen years down the line.

I don't think that the auction house breaks the game. WoW players have been dealing with the same issue for years. The problem is that the stock auction house is broken and needs to be modded. The prices are all over the place because nobody knows how to price their items; the system doesn't give them much guidance.

I couldn't play WoW without the Auctioneer mod. It downloads the entire AH and tells me the going rate for items on my server. When I post auctions, it looks them up and gives me some pricing options (going rate or slightly below lowest price)

Items are worth what sellers are willing to pay for them, and the current AH in D3 doesn't give the seller the tools he needs.

Second beef with the game is the lack of an in-game mail system. You can't give items to friends if they aren't standing right next to you in the game. It's also tough to send items to alts; you have to clear space in your bank, log out this character, log in that character, pick up the item. If there was a mailbox, I could just drop it in the mail and be done with it.

As a blizzard fan of old, (started playing the original Warcraft on a 486 processor), I enjoy most of what I have seen in D3. That said, I have a few caveats. To put this in perspective, let me state that so far I have only played the 1 month free, which means to those who are not aware, I have been limited to the King Leoric quest, and a maximum level 13.

I have played each character class in turn, and my favorite is the Monk. However, so far I have not seen how the skill progression needs me at all. At this level you get this ability. Yes, I can choose what ability to use, and which rune, (or with my limited level, a rune), to use, but I don't see a how you can get different skill paths. And the maps are miniscule, "Find Adria's hut", is simply a path to the hut, no having to search and find the area, or anything, you walk the only path to the hut. You get to the hut and oh, a glowing secret cave, and it is the only way to go, and you have an NPC telling you to follow her down into it. Seriously? The quest for King Leoric's crown is not much better, you have only 3 possible locations in the cemetery that it can be in, each "dungeon" is pretty much a single path through it, with one branch.

In Diablo 1 and 2, the areas were much more open, even if the path through the game was a linear progression, the large open maps, and alternate layouts made it more playable, you had to find things as you went no matter how many times you played through. When I've played open online games, it has been a run to the king each time, just run to him and to heck with any possible side stuff, no exploring, just run to the end.

So for me the game seems shallow, I'm not sure I want to spend the money.

Its fun for now, but unless they fix the AH-tuned itemization the game's not going to have anywhere near the staying power that D2 had for me.

Yup, you guys let me know when they have that all sorted out, I've only played the game for Beta for about 30min and I was getting about 18fps with an i7 OCed and using a single Radeon HD 6950 2GB which is a pretty damn good card.

I know they've optimized it a lot, but I won't touch it until it's perfect. Blizzard has to work a lot if they want to win me over.

As a blizzard fan of old, (started playing the original Warcraft on a 486 processor), I enjoy most of what I have seen in D3. That said, I have a few caveats. To put this in perspective, let me state that so far I have only played the 1 month free, which means to those who are not aware, I have been limited to the King Leoric quest, and a maximum level 13.

I have played each character class in turn, and my favorite is the Monk. However, so far I have not seen how the skill progression needs me at all. At this level you get this ability. Yes, I can choose what ability to use, and which rune, (or with my limited level, a rune), to use, but I don't see a how you can get different skill paths. And the maps are miniscule, "Find Adria's hut", is simply a path to the hut, no having to search and find the area, or anything, you walk the only path to the hut. You get to the hut and oh, a glowing secret cave, and it is the only way to go, and you have an NPC telling you to follow her down into it. Seriously? The quest for King Leoric's crown is not much better, you have only 3 possible locations in the cemetery that it can be in, each "dungeon" is pretty much a single path through it, with one branch.

In Diablo 1 and 2, the areas were much more open, even if the path through the game was a linear progression, the large open maps, and alternate layouts made it more playable, you had to find things as you went no matter how many times you played through. When I've played open online games, it has been a run to the king each time, just run to him and to heck with any possible side stuff, no exploring, just run to the end.

So for me the game seems shallow, I'm not sure I want to spend the money.

Certain areas (especially the start of Act 1) are fairly linear. Other areas of the game you'll curse because of how far you'll travel down a fork in a path only to realize it circles back or dead ends. The maps also get much larger, you're just not in a position to realize.

There are no skill paths, only difficult choices about what combos to use. By the time you get to upper levels you have a large selection, but only a few spaces to choose from. There are a lot of "I really like this skill, but what about this and how it meshes with other skill" debates.

I'm getting tired of seeing people say they "completed the game" because the finished normal, and that it was too easy. You haven't finished anything but the story (which isn't that good anyway). The difficulty ramps up significantly in nightmare, and even more so in Hell (elite mobs are harder than bosses, and have more adds). I haven't even made it to Inferno yet.

To get my Diablo fix, I picked up Torchlight for $5 at Christmas time. Shortly thereafter, I was invited to the Diablo 3 beta test. Being a professional QA guy, I thoroughly played each class and tried as many combinations as I could. A couple classes didn't feel finished, but I suspect those were ironed out by release. They didn't open up the AH until Feb. I'm not surprised it doesn't appear finished in the release version. Eventually, real life encroached and other games caught my fancy.

My review of the beta? Great graphics, sound was terrific. Some classes felt balanced and nearly finished. One class did not. The multiplayer aspect turned into less of a bunch of friends going through a level and more of a mad dash to the boss. Not at all interesting to me, but definitely a way to get the ph4t l3wt fast.

At $60, I did not purchase Diablo 3. At $20, I am pre-ordering Torchlight 2 (as a father's day gift) and gifting the extra Torchlight 1 license to a friend.

Edit to add: Yes, I am one of the "always on DRM" detractors. I didn't mind it in the beta, because it was, after all, beta. But when the authentication servers go down, or I'm at a friend's LAN party, I don't care for the need to connect to the Internet. I look forward to all the creative types additions to the Torchlight 2 universe - customization which you won't get in Diablo 3.

Didn't read any of the other posts, just posting an experience I had over the weekend.

At home I've had no issue with Diablo's always on drm, other then having to log in.... Why can't it use computer comp serial numbers to identify this computer and allow me to set it as my primary computer and not have to put in my password every time... I have a biometrically locked down laptop.

Anyway.

This weekend, traveled some. Saturday night, was at a hotel with ok wireless internet. I could get 70 ms ping and a few meg down. Decent I'd say, not home, but decent. Bring up diablo 3 and.... Quit it after 30 seconds, because watching my avatar react several moments after I click to do something is not fun. It was unplayable.

^^^

That experience is unforgivable for a game I am playing solo on my own computer. WTH does it have to talk about everything with the server, including everywhere I click and move... Cant they bloody optimize for single player games that aren't public, and allow them to send a crap ton less to their servers? Or just how about make it asynchronous on single player games, not requiring the server to respond, y a know fire and forget. I'd accept a checkbox at game start that allows you to set the game local only. no online play. no AH etc.

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Patching hero stuff during games... I'm 3/4 the way through my latest play through. and suddenly my character is dying in every fight. Can't they set these patches to go into effect when a new game is started, so you can at least finish your bloody game as you started it?

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And what is it about my char forgetting all the maps she's already been through, so I log back in, and go. ok. where have I been and where do I need to go? *sighs* Glad I have a decent memory.

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And then not being able to save anywhere, and dealing with checkpoints. Checkpoints are not professional working adult friendly. I literally just leave the game running in the background and never log off unless I just hit a checkpoint. Oh and sometimes. checkpoints are seconds apart, other times, hours of play apart. WTH.

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Is it fun. Yeah and addicting enough to keep me from getting my consulting work done. Though I partly blame checkpoint system for that. Though dying every fight is getting so old so quick.

I know always-on is a deal breaker for some people, but lets not pretend like it doesn't have any benefits at all.

It doesn't have any benefits. Why? Because those aren't benefits of being forced to be online.

If you unplugged your network connection, you wouldn't be able to play with your friends. But if forced online wasn't available, then you could at least play by yourself.

There was no technological limitation preventing Blizzard from allowing the game to continue to run single-player in non-online conditions. They could still have all of those features you talked about and provide LAN play or just off-line single-player for those who are playing in off-line conditions.

You're conflating two things: better online support and forced-online play. You don't need the latter to have the former.

It was the deal breaker for me. I didn't buy the three copies we would need to play in my household. While I fully understand the need for a secure online environment ( I remember all the blatant cheating in online Diablo 1 and 2)...this still should not prevent me from running a private LAN game at home with my kids.

I've loved it and had a ton of fun. I guess I just didnt have expectations of perfection.

I see so many complaints about the "Online DRM"... first of all, its not really DRM... it just requires a persistent internet connection, like an MMO. You wouldnt say that WoW has DRM because it requires you to always be online.Second, the always online requirement is absolutely necessary because its the only way that Blizzard has any hope of being able to prevent item duplication bugs/hacks. For those that werent around for D1 and D2, item dups and all kind of crazy hacks that, for example, would let people one shot other players was a major MAJOR problem (PVP was "always on".) It made the "economy" of the game completely broken. Modern gamers are going to demand things like Action Houses and systemized and protected gear trading... well if you want that, then you need to insure that the game has an economy that cant be trivialized.

You know how Avengers came out this summer, and totally blew you away at how awesome movies can be when everything just comes together?

And then MIB3 comes out, and it's ok, but it just seems like they took a brand 10 years old and didn't really do much with it to make it fresher for the times. It seems like something that would have been great had it come out 2 years after the original, but now, it's sort of ... meh.

Well ... Diablo III would have been awesome if it came out 2 years after Diablo II. But now ... it's just meh. We have better games now, ones that have raised the bar. Diablo II was bar-raising during it's time. Now, Diablo III seems long in the tooth when it's only just come out.

You know, it's odd. Anecdotally, almost everyone I know who has actually played the game has enjoyed the hell out of it. Only a handful have found it less than compelling. By and large, the most numerous critics of the game seem to be either people who haven't played it (unable/unwilling due to the online qualifier; don't like dungeon-clickers; et cetera) or professional reviewers who seem to be scrambling to be the first to post a negative review of the current best-selling PC game.

It's hard to argue with someone who has a preconception (this swings both ways - I readily admit to giving Blizzard games leeway on release that I wouldn't give other game companies simply due to their track record over the last fifteen years), and it seems like there are a lot of preconceptions when it comes to Diablo 3.

Yeah, so far I have 4 close friends playing it and only one of them has ever played another Diablo game. They're all enjoying themselves a lot.

I see so many complaints about the "Online DRM"... first of all, its not really DRM... it just requires a persistent internet connection, like an MMO. You wouldnt say that WoW has DRM because it requires you to always be online.

Yes, it is DRM and yes, I would say MMOs use an always-online connection as part of its DRM. It's simply what is expected in terms of the genre.

You could describe it as a kind of DRM, but in a sense it's the opposite of DRM. If the downloaded client were capable of generating items and playing a full single-player game, it would need some sort of DRM to stop people "sharing" it. Since so many people are fond of doing this, the trend is to make the client only capable of playing part of the game. Now you can share the client all you want but it doesn't do very much without the server. You have total control of the software you paid for and it can say "trying to contact authentication server" on any machine of your choice.

You could describe it as a kind of DRM, but in a sense it's the opposite of DRM. If the downloaded client were capable of generating items and playing a full single-player game, it would need some sort of DRM to stop people "sharing" it. Since so many people are fond of doing this, the trend is to make the client only capable of playing part of the game. Now you can share the client all you want but it doesn't do very much without the server. You have total control of the software you paid for and it can say "trying to contact authentication server" on any machine of your choice.

*snickers*

You really should click on the link too. Your entire argument only reinforces that it *IS* DRM.